Adding More Zero’s – Journey to Market Disruption and Building Generational Change

[GPM]

I have been humming and hawing about making this post for a while. In the end I decided that it would be more of a benefit to me to go ahead with it. This is a way for me to compile what I am doing in a way that should keep my a$$ in gear, and moving forward. I promise that future updates will be small, this one will highlight some history for anyone who is interested.

I am currently in the Desert of Desertion and therefor it is really easy to take 1 day off, which very easily can become 2 days, which can turn into a week and then a month. If I do that I WILL BE KILLED with what I am doing. I need to be moving forward every single day. No days off.

This is not to say that I am spending 12+ hours 7 days a week on this. That would be madness. However, every single day I need to take at least one step closer towards my goal. I am crossing a continent here and it is going to take thousands of steps, so I had better keep moving!

The end goal – disrupt “business as usual” in massive industries that don’t look any further than “this is the way we have always done it”. Generate the ability for generational family change, for my own family as well as my new "extended family" (business partners...)

What will happen on a personal level once this has been done? My family is literally spread across all of Canada. My parents miss their grandbabies dearly, and don’t have the income to fly and see them more than a few times a year (The grand kids and their parents can fly to see grandpa and grandma 0 times a year). I want this to never be an issue, they can go visit one another whenever they want (my mom also wants a cottage on that side of the country near the grandkids, I want to be able to do this for her).

My wife is from Mexico and her family lives in a city with increasing violence, danger and corruption. Half of the family has already left for a different area of the country. I want to be able to help the rest of the family move somewhere safer, with those who have already gone. Mexicans have very close family ties, and it is heartbreaking to have families split up. I want to teach my nieces and nephews that there is a better way, and that it can be done from right at home.

My “selfish” motivations… Canada looks to be running towards communism (or at least serious socialism), with a bunch of people holding their hands out asking what the government can provide them. The government is proposing bills that are outright confiscation from business owners, because they think it is unfair for private corporations to make more money than salaried employees. I shit you not. I am sick of this and don’t really want to be around when the castle starts to crumble. I want the freedom to avoid cold a$$ winters, and forced confiscation at the threat of jail from our “glorious leaders”. I want to provide value and educate people, but I don’t want to be tied down somewhere that can take my value vouchers by passing insane laws that no one reads. I want to be able to spend time with my (future) children. I don’t want to always be at work, and never spending time with them. I don’t want to be too tired on evenings and weekends, and to spend my life vegged out on a couch in front of a TV.

The journey. Where did this all start? Over a year ago when I was in employee mode, dabbling here and dabbling there, but living far too comfortably to really try (at the time I thought I was trying, now looking back I was not), someone from this very forum contacted me about potential disruption in the market that I knew. We talked a bit. While I thought I was doing something this still fell off the radar and didn’t go anywhere when it clearly should have. I was not taking that step every single day, and months passed by.

Fast forward to summer 2017 and I got laid off from my well paying job. This was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I knew that, but I didn’t really understand why this was so at the time. Roughly 2 months after I was laid off, I was at a “job course” of some sort that the company was gracious enough to pay for. This was to be a 1 month course where the pros would teach us how to do our resumes properly, how to catch the eyes of employers, how to be a good employee. I attended a 2 hour tutorial at an office in downtown. This course was my FTE. I thought I was going to pass out due to extreme anxiety while I was there. The drive to succeed was now imprinted into my soul.

A few weeks later I got a text message or a skype message or something from this same person as from a year before. The project was still on. He asked me one question. My brain fired completely different this time. I took a hold of that idea and wrestled it to the damn ground and came back with some solid data and a path. If was still in employee-comfort-mode I am afraid I would have passed this by the same as before. Thank goodness for FTE.

A few weeks after, I flew to the States for some face to face time. While down there I also managed to get a short little informal meeting with a potential customer (Fortune 500 company…) The group of us drove to their local headquarters and met the guy in the lobby for a 10 minute chat. From there this has moved out to more contacts in the company, and some massive business will come out of this…

 

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[Kak]

For those of you who don’t know @GPM you should. The guy is an unstoppable machine and I have been massively impressed with the ridiculous levels of action he takes. When he says disrupt, he means when this cracks open enough money to change the rest of his life will pop out within 6 months.

I bet if we are honest, most of us with the freedom to will end up taking a few days off here and there. I can’t for the life of me understand what some of the “bootstrappers” are doing for 90 hours a week. They are either full of shit, action faking, or have seriously broken processes. Sometimes entrepreneurship is a waiting game. It’s putting balls in other peoples courts and finding new balls. Entrepreneurship on the scale GPM is talking about (as I am privy to what he’s working on) requires the support and willingness of many other people from large organizations. It’s bureaucracy, but such are multi-billion dollar customers.

Looking forward to this thread! Subscribed and you should too. This thread will need a PLATINUM category.

 

[GPM]

This is not new progress, but I thought I would give a slight update with some of what has gone in to this so far. As some of you might know, I am cracking some incredibly large nuts with this project. I will be doing business with some of the largest companies in the world, and once the dust settles I will have displaced many large players who have been around for a long time.

Here are the exact steps that I have taken in order to get on the phone and into rooms with these people. Names have been changed, but titles have not.


Company One:

Arnold Smith – Vice President

I found this individual on their company’s corporate website. From there I looked for him on LinkedIn. I sent him a message stating that I know he is not the person who I need to talk to, but was wondering if he could point me to the individual who I would need to talk to. Some small details were included which contained some technical information regarding who I am and what I am doing.

Arnold replied and said that the best person to initially contact for this was Joe Blow, their Western VP. He provided me with direct contact information (You might think that this sounds rare, but I have done it several times). I got on the phone with Joe and said that I was talking with Arnold and he mentioned that I should get in contact with him. Joe let me know that the person who I need to talk to in regarding this was Bill Smith. He was kind enough to reply in email and CC Bill for me.

I gained instant authority by having these people refer me within their company. It has not mattered so far that I don’t actually know the first contact. Bill is the man who has the power to move this forward, and I have been working with him in order to have this done. I now have his cell phone number for calls and texts, his direct email, and his office number. All of which I use regularly.


Company Two:

This is a company that I know some individuals who work there. I have taken a few retired members out to lunch and learned what I can about the structure. I have also reached out to these individuals:

Bon Jovi – (former) Canadian President

I messaged Bon a few times on LinkedIn, and ended up getting his direct phone number. I then called him and we chatted about what it is that I am trying to do for his former company. Out of this I got the direct numbers of the current Canadian President, along with the man who runs their division that I am interested in doing business with, as well as the man who handles exactly what it is I am providing. Several phone calls and emails with those individuals have led to contacts in similar positions in the US division. I was able in all instances to tell them that Bon had told me to give them a call.

The key contact out of this is their Global Product Manager (GPM). You read that right. GLOBAL. I now have a direct line to this person. Let me state that again. I went from a specific Canadian area, to the GLOBAL product manager. Believe me when I say that there is potential here.

Two weeks after starting this I flew down to USA to meet with my business partners to figure out how we wanted to proceed with all of this. Plus I wanted to meet them in person, rather than just on the phone or through email. My only goal of this trip was to enjoy the nice weather and get to know these guys. While in my Air BnB with some downtime, I decide to make some calls. My new contacts in USA are based in the city I was in, so I wanted to see if I could get some face-to-face time with them.

I tried and tried to get ahold of their GPM, but no luck. Rather than giving up I called back to my Canadian contacts, told them I was down in this city and that I could not get ahold of GPM. They put me in contact with another individual who is their Technical Product Manager (TPM). This worked out great! After a quick chat we arranged for a lobby meeting the next day! By meeting with their TPM, this has opened the door to their GPM, who I am now able to contact on a regular basis…

While this has not led to anything concrete as of yet, the opportunities are massive, all because I got on the phone or sent out some emails. I completely bypassed any gate-keepers. I don’t even try to go through them anymore.


The moral of the story? Get. On. The. Damn. Phone.

 

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[GPM]

Well it has been a long and hard battle.

Our first meeting with our potential customer was in November 2017. As of this morning we just received our first PO.

Some small details on the timeline involving this are as follows:

• July 2017 - Communications begin
• November 2017 - We drop off our material for testing
• Summer 2018 - Our material completed lab testing and approved
• Fall 2018 - We jump through a million hoops to be able to be a vendor of this company
• December 2018 - They tell us they want to order, and send an email stating as much
• March 2018 - I have been the squeaky wheel for 3-4 months trying to get them to actually put the order in. This includes flying down for meetings. They finally put an order in, which I received this morning

So this was the first major hurdle to overcome. Everything prior to this was essentially just a bunch of work with no payoff, now the real fun starts. This first order will prove out our concept in the real world, not just in the laboratory. Once this is successful it essentially opens the door for us to be able to generate contracts with our customers. We want steady orders, we will provide guarantee pricing and availability and whatever else needs to be done in order to make everyone happy.

One nice thing about the order being so slow, is that while all that was going on, lab testing was continuing on expanding the need for our material. The potential keeps increasing, and now that we have jumped through all the hoops and actual orders are being placed, it will be as easy as them asking for more and we get them more. No more games.

The real fun is that we now have the most respected name in the industry as a customer. The weight that this carries will be massive, and I can now take this with me as we increase our customer base. We literally started with the top dog in the entire industry, and won.

 

[GPM]

So something that I have noticed in regards to a shift in mindset.

Before, I was motivated by being able to own cool stuff. I love fast cars. I love to travel. I want fancy watches and high end electronics.

As some of you know, we had a baby a squeak over a month ago. Now that is all I can think about. Sure I still want the fancy stuff, but when I really deep-down think about what I want, it all revolves around family. I think that if I had 100k in the bank to spend, not a penny of it would go towards toys for me. It would all go towards facilitating family.

I want a larger house, but this isn't for some gaudy reason to show off. I want something that a community can gather at. I want family and friends to want to come over, for it to be a destination to get away and build relationships. I want to be able to fly and see family that is on the other side of the country, or a different country all together.

I am sure the toys will come, but they have been bumped to the bottom of the list in a big way.

Sorry for boring you all with that, back to business!

So a while back I saw a big delivery truck that advertised on the side what it is that their company does. I thought to myself "GPM, this looks like a company that needs what we have, I better find out how to talk to them". I ended up finding their purchasing and logistics manager on LinkedIn. After some back-and-forth we started to email each other. Turns out they can use what we have. We discussed volumes and frequency and well as pricing, and came to something that sound agreeable between us.

Today I drove down to meet him in person, and dropped off a sample for them to test. If all goes well, we could become their newest supplier.

This business might not go anywhere, but if it does it literally came about from me seeing a delivery truck while out on a walk and following up on it. Keep your eyes open, there are literally opportunities all over the place.

 

[GPM]

While this is not an update on this particular business, it is still one that I am doing. I didn't want to pollute a different thread with silly stories.

This is just to highlight how much fun working can be sometimes. I am going to keep this as a story for my children to realize what dad had to go through before he was just another rich dude.

A delivery of a few pallets arrived today. Rather than have them deliver such a small quantity to the garage I am renting, as they charge a minimum delivery fee of about $350, I decided to rent a truck and go pick it up myself. I have done this several times before, and it generally takes 90 minutes from start to finish. Total cost (not including my time) is roughly $50.

Mother nature was having none of my timeline! Thursday night the sky opened up, and it just now stopped snowing. We had some semi-warm and sunny weather the past few days, so there was a lovely sheen of water on top of every surface right before the temperatures dropped and the light and fluffy started to fall.

I brought my younger brother with me on this adventure, I will take all the free labor I can get. The short drive from the truck rental place to the freight warehouse was an adventure all in itself. The truck would barely get going from stops, and would slide through intersections like a drunk man running on a skating rink. We made it without incident, and I kept it to about half the speed limit.

The first bit of real fun arrived at the loading bay. While trying to back into it the truck got stuck for the first time. I had my brother jump into the drivers seat, while I pushed it from the front to complete backing in. We got it most of the way to the delivery bay. Far enough for the pallet truck to get the first pallet half way onto the truck and put some weight on the back tires. From there we were able to properly back it all the way in. So far so good.

Driving to my garage with weight on it was no issue at all. It wouldn't back all the way up the driveway, but we at least got it off the residential road. Adding 15 feet of walk to hand-bomb the boxes was not the worst thing in the world. The day was still going well.

Pulling out of the driveway and back onto the residential road. So far so good, for about 5 feet... The second the front tires turned was the second the truck decided it was refusing to move. Out come the shovels to try and dig down to pavement. My brother is back in the captains chair and I am out back pushing. No luck. Not even a little. I must have rocked and pushed that thing for 15 minutes before giving up.

Thankfully there was a man in a brand new F150 who had arrived some time earlier at his parents house. Looking at my picture of me on the back of the truck, he was not there just half an hour earlier. I actually caught him in his truck just finishing a phone call and about to leave again. Talk about absolutely perfect timing. He comes over and tows us out. Awesome! After the tow he ended up in some snow and was stuck himself. 4-wheel drive didn't help him a bit! Back in the snow and pushing I go. Pushed from the front of the truck, then round to the back, then back to the front. Eventually he is freed.

Back into the delivery truck I go. The truck does not go straight when we try to move, it goes sideways. Back into the snow and stuck as Winnie the Poo in a tree trunk. The man in the truck drives 'round behind us as we pull from the other way to get started. Back onto semi drive-able road I still have my brother in the captains chair. This time both me and my new best friend are standing on the tailgate to add some weight to the rear tires. Success! We drive about a block onto the main drive and we hop off and I get back into the truck. Fairwell kind gentleman, may the god's smile down on your extreme kindness.

We now have a delivery truck filled with the wood panels and pallets, tie wraps, sealant and plastic wrap. My parents don't live too far away and they have a renovation bin out front. My next destination to drop the trash off at. I figured we could do this, I just need to keep the truck in the middle of the road and don't leave the main drag.

My plan was working! We got to my parents place with no issues. Unloaded all the garbage with no troubles. This was the final destination for my brother, he stayed to watch me off to make sure I could get started. The second my foot left the drive pedal, the truck slide sideways. Crap! Stuck in the snow and ice again. Off to our parent's garage to see if we can find some gravel or something. We ended up finding a few bags of sand and ice-melt salt. We threw these in the back to add some weight, and ended up dumping a bag of sand under the tires. That combined with my pushing got us free! We reversed down the drive for a few blocks until we were on to a more major drive. At this point we swapped me into the driver's seat due to insurance reasons and it being my rental. We can do this!

Well apparently we couldn't do this. Same thing, as soon as we tried to go anywhere we just slid sideways and off the main road. Now we had almost no sand left, and I didn't want to be using all my dad's materials anyways. Back to pushing I go!

After about 10 minutes of pushing we were maybe 6 inches further down the road. A nice gentleman came by and got out to assist us. We maybe made it another 2 feet. Before giving up one more nice man came by. We now had 3 people pushing! The second the truck got any forward momentum and was on some fresh snow it would just slide sideways and off the road.

Alright, time to rethink this. Since the road was slightly crowned, the second we had any spin and slippage in the tires (which was instantly), the truck would just point sideways. So in order for the truck to face down the road we figured we need to just push on the side of the truck and force those wheels back on to the road. It worked! With three men pushing the side of the truck, we somehow managed to get some forward motion. As soon as we were moving enough to keep forward I jumped onto the tailgate to keep the weight there. I yelled many thanks to my saviors and shouted at my brother to keep going and to just run all the stop signs. There was no way in hell we were going to stop this thing again.

So there I was. In freezing temperatures, hanging off the back of the tailgate of a truck, as we drove down the road. A little over 1km away was a hill facing in the downward direction. I yell at my brother to stop for nothing, to drive in the middle of both lanes, and to not apply any brakes until we are at the steepest point of that hill. Once we arrived there he stopped the truck. With frozen face and hands, I resumed the drivers position. The plan to start on the hill worked!

I babied the truck the whole way back to the rental store. Driving as slow as I could and crawling to every light as best we could so that I would not be forced to stop moving. Eventually we arrived at our destination. I did not let my foul mood taint the interactions I had with others, and by being friendly with the man behind the counter I even got him to wave the $20 "didn't fill the gas tank" fee. Overall the adventure took almost 5 hours hours, so it still cost me 3x in rental fees, but that extra fee might have pushed me over the edge. Thank you kind sir!

Fast forward a few hours and I now have all my boxes organized on shelves, and my car is so loaded with boxes that I was legitimately concerned that my tires would be rubbing the wheel arches. @Davidla @CurtRod it was almost our low-rider Uber adventure all over again.

I made it to my apartment safe and sound. Wait a second, where is my dolly. How am I supposed to get these boxes upstairs? Someone had stolen my dolly from my "secured" underground parking space. Sigh...

 

[GPM]

I forgot to add a moral to the story:

Hiring someone to do the work for you is often the cheaper option!

 

[GPM]

Well that was fast. Like crazy fast. It went from "I am not sure on the details on when we will need our first order" over the phone, to receiving a confirmation email with an order 30 minutes later.

Based on previous conversations with them we knew roughly how much they needed, but they made it sound like it was not as much as we were hoping. While I don't yet have the frequency for when they will need to order again, they went and absolutely BLEW UP my expectations on a first order. So yea, this is insanely good news. I imagine that once we are officially in place and used in a real-world environment (as opposed to just lab tests), all the doors will open up on them using our product.

The ball has been set in motion, we have a hundred steps to take from here that we were waiting on. January is going to be a freaking whirlwind of activity to capitalize on this.

 

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[GPM]

All set to go. They are calling me before the end of the week to let me know when to expect an order.

I am not going to say anything more than that, but the phone call had some seriously good news as well. Looks like they may have been playing some of this close to their chest, and now that we are officially going to be supplying them, the real numbers are going to be coming out soon.

Persistence, persistence, persistence. There were 100 times I could have given up, or just accepted that I left them a message and was waiting for them. Any one of those times this could have just gone nowhere. There is a reason that these companies have such shitty service, the employees they deal with do just that. They do the absolute minimum to get by. We are providing excellent service and I think it is starting to show. I have already been thanked by someone for keeping them in the loop, as no one ever thought to do so with them before.

It is comments like that that let me know I am on the right track and I need to keep going.

Prepare for BIG things. I am flying here folks! That positive feedback loop is kicking in, and it is making going after more business even easier.

My wife and new baby are pretty happy as well. I was let go from a 6-figure job in the summer of 2017 and have been working for free since then. You want stress? Try doing that with a wife and a brand new baby! Needless to say, she is happy beyond words and just amazingly excited for all of this.

For anyone struggling through the Desert of Desertion, KEEP GOING!!! The ONLY way to reach that light at the end of the tunnel is to keep going. If you give up you will literally never reach it. A few years of struggle is NOTHING when compared to the alternative being "never".

 

[Kak]

While this is not an update on this particular business, it is still one that I am doing. I didn't want to pollute a different thread with silly stories.

This is just to highlight how much fun working can be sometimes. I am going to keep this as a story for my children to realize what dad had to go through before he was just another rich dude.

A delivery of a few pallets arrived today. Rather than have them deliver such a small quantity to the garage I am renting, as they charge a minimum delivery fee of about $350, I decided to rent a truck and go pick it up myself. I have done this several times before, and it generally takes 90 minutes from start to finish. Total cost (not including my time) is roughly $50.

Mother nature was having none of my timeline! Thursday night the sky opened up, and it just now stopped snowing. We had some semi-warm and sunny weather the past few days, so there was a lovely sheen of water on top of every surface right before the temperatures dropped and the light and fluffy started to fall.

I brought my younger brother with me on this adventure, I will take all the free labor I can get. The short drive from the truck rental place to the freight warehouse was an adventure all in itself. The truck would barely get going from stops, and would slide through intersections like a drunk man running on a skating rink. We made it without incident, and I kept it to about half the speed limit.

The first bit of real fun arrived at the loading bay. While trying to back into it the truck got stuck for the first time. I had my brother jump into the drivers seat, while I pushed it from the front to complete backing in. We got it most of the way to the delivery bay. Far enough for the pallet truck to get the first pallet half way onto the truck and put some weight on the back tires. From there we were able to properly back it all the way in. So far so good.

Driving to my garage with weight on it was no issue at all. It wouldn't back all the way up the driveway, but we at least got it off the residential road. Adding 15 feet of walk to hand-bomb the boxes was not the worst thing in the world. The day was still going well.

Pulling out of the driveway and back onto the residential road. So far so good, for about 5 feet... The second the front tires turned was the second the truck decided it was refusing to move. Out come the shovels to try and dig down to pavement. My brother is back in the captains chair and I am out back pushing. No luck. Not even a little. I must have rocked and pushed that thing for 15 minutes before giving up.

Thankfully there was a man in a brand new F150 who had arrived some time earlier at his parents house. Looking at my picture of me on the back of the truck, he was not there just half an hour earlier. I actually caught him in his truck just finishing a phone call and about to leave again. Talk about absolutely perfect timing. He comes over and tows us out. Awesome! After the tow he ended up in some snow and was stuck himself. 4-wheel drive didn't help him a bit! Back in the snow and pushing I go. Pushed from the front of the truck, then round to the back, then back to the front. Eventually he is freed.

Back into the delivery truck I go. The truck does not go straight when we try to move, it goes sideways. Back into the snow and stuck as Winnie the Poo in a tree trunk. The man in the truck drives 'round behind us as we pull from the other way to get started. Back onto semi drive-able road I still have my brother in the captains chair. This time both me and my new best friend are standing on the tailgate to add some weight to the rear tires. Success! We drive about a block onto the main drive and we hop off and I get back into the truck. Fairwell kind gentleman, may the god's smile down on your extreme kindness.

We now have a delivery truck filled with the wood panels and pallets, tie wraps, sealant and plastic wrap. My parents don't live too far away and they have a renovation bin out front. My next destination to drop the trash off at. I figured we could do this, I just need to keep the truck in the middle of the road and don't leave the main drag.

My plan was working! We got to my parents place with no issues. Unloaded all the garbage with no troubles. This was the final destination for my brother, he stayed to watch me off to make sure I could get started. The second my foot left the drive pedal, the truck slide sideways. Crap! Stuck in the snow and ice again. Off to our parent's garage to see if we can find some gravel or something. We ended up finding a few bags of sand and ice-melt salt. We threw these in the back to add some weight, and ended up dumping a bag of sand under the tires. That combined with my pushing got us free! We reversed down the drive for a few blocks until we were on to a more major drive. At this point we swapped me into the driver's seat due to insurance reasons and it being my rental. We can do this!

Well apparently we couldn't do this. Same thing, as soon as we tried to go anywhere we just slid sideways and off the main road. Now we had almost no sand left, and I didn't want to be using all my dad's materials anyways. Back to pushing I go!

After about 10 minutes of pushing we were maybe 6 inches further down the road. A nice gentleman came by and got out to assist us. We maybe made it another 2 feet. Before giving up one more nice man came by. We now had 3 people pushing! The second the truck got any forward momentum and was on some fresh snow it would just slide sideways and off the road.

Alright, time to rethink this. Since the road was slightly crowned, the second we had any spin and slippage in the tires (which was instantly), the truck would just point sideways. So in order for the truck to face down the road we figured we need to just push on the side of the truck and force those wheels back on to the road. It worked! With three men pushing the side of the truck, we somehow managed to get some forward motion. As soon as we were moving enough to keep forward I jumped onto the tailgate to keep the weight there. I yelled many thanks to my saviors and shouted at my brother to keep going and to just run all the stop signs. There was no way in hell we were going to stop this thing again.

So there I was. In freezing temperatures, hanging off the back of the tailgate of a truck, as we drove down the road. A little over 1km away was a hill facing in the downward direction. I yell at my brother to stop for nothing, to drive in the middle of both lanes, and to not apply any brakes until we are at the steepest point of that hill. Once we arrived there he stopped the truck. With frozen face and hands, I resumed the drivers position. The plan to start on the hill worked!

I babied the truck the whole way back to the rental store. Driving as slow as I could and crawling to every light as best we could so that I would not be forced to stop moving. Eventually we arrived at our destination. I did not let my foul mood taint the interactions I had with others, and by being friendly with the man behind the counter I even got him to wave the $20 "didn't fill the gas tank" fee. Overall the adventure took almost 5 hours hours, so it still cost me 3x in rental fees, but that extra fee might have pushed me over the edge. Thank you kind sir!

Fast forward a few hours and I now have all my boxes organized on shelves, and my car is so loaded with boxes that I was legitimately concerned that my tires would be rubbing the wheel arches. @Davidla @CurtRod it was almost our low-rider Uber adventure all over again.

I made it to my apartment safe and sound. Wait a second, where is my dolly. How am I supposed to get these boxes upstairs? Someone had stolen my dolly from my "secured" underground parking space. Sigh...

Holy crap man. I knew you had a rough go of it yesterday, but wow!

Let this be a lesson to the forum. As an entrepreneur often you have to get your hands dirty doing things you wouldn’t normally do.

You will do some crazy shit on the road to success. It’s inevitable.

Yes hiring someone could have been cheaper, but @GPM did this in favor of ruthless cost cutting in the first place. “Why pay an extra few hundred bucks when I can do this myself in 90 minutes?” It didn’t pan out as the best plan, but that is entrepreneurship it’s often a ridiculous adventure.

Great post! Rep+

 

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[GPM]

So we are now set up to be suppliers for 2 of these major vendors. Through them we can move product to nearly any company in North America who wants our goods. That is the plan anyways.

At this point in time my job is to keep prodding a few key people at a few different companies to just put an order in. All the pieces of the puzzle are in the place, now we just have to get the ball rolling and it should be fairly straight forward.

I can not stress just how easy this can be. For anyone who is scared to do something, just start talking to people. I shit you not, the last 2 weeks I have been talking to old contacts I have in the industry and just asking simple questions. I also gave my brother who is working in an adjacent industry to what I am dealing in to ask a few key questions to anyone he is talking to.

By doing this I came back with some small nuggets of information, which I then just honed into more specific questions I could ask. I came up with a name of a product. I googled that product, came up with the company that makes it. From there I talked to someone in that company, got referred from WITHIN the company to their buyer. So now I am going to be talking to their buyer at their headquarters AND I have a reference from within their own company. This last little bit literally happened this morning.

It is not rocket science, you just need to do a little bit of digging and get on the phone or send some emails. Never be afraid to talk to anyone. Titan's of industry are flesh and blood, same as anyone else.

I am not selling private labeled coasters or wine bottle openers, I am not negotiating to save $50 on a sample from China. The size of these orders would probably make most people's eyes water. And each time I think that I am going after something big, it isn't really. There are 100 ways to go about this making it even bigger and last even longer.

For anyone who has some big grand idea out there, GO AFTER IT. One bite at a time. This stuff does not happen overnight, and there is literally no limit to the size that anything can be. It all starts the same though, one piece of action, which then gets built upon by another piece of action. Before you know it you have 100 pieces in place and are putting deals together.

 

[GPM]

Update time

TLDR: Boom Shakalaka!

The longer version:

So we have been grinding away at this. These large companies move at a glacial pace. I think to myself "okay this is going to take a while, I will give it a week, and then for good measure and a tad of insanity I will give it one more week after that". Two months later we move that baby step forward... When I say slow, I mean a city paving project and pothole filling that takes an entire season has more action than this.

So after some hoops to jump through, we are now an official vendor of Company B. They like what we have, they want what we have. The only thing here is that they are not the end user, so they are waiting for an order on their end that requires us, and then they are going to order from us. Word on the street this is "soon". Getting on The Official Vendor List was not exactly what I would call fun, but it is now done. This means that from now until eternity we are able to supply whatever happens to come up for our new dear friends. This is what "the final countdown" was for. As I said, glacial pace, so we are still in waiting mode. However, we are in. So we have open ears and are keeping the dialog open. Funny that we are dealing with these guys, because they are going to tie into something coming along in the future.


So on to Company A. I have been hounding these guys for a while now. These are the guys we met in person in the lobby in the intro post to this thread. Things just moved forward in a BIG way.

They like us, they like what we have. However, they have an insane amount of vetting to do before they can order something from anyone. On our end we just do what needs to be done, on their end they have scientists, lab technicians, logistics coordinators, and HSE representatives that all need to have a piece of the action. I can't imagine the price that these guys have put into making this happen, but it has to be well into the tens of thousands of dollars. Depending on how much work the lab-coats had to do, it might be up into hundreds of man-hours on that alone. It is all very tight lipped.

So after much back and forth, we are at about 90% with these guys. We are just waiting for a few pieces to line up with their HSE on some environmental information, but this is just some paperwork that needs to be submitted and then vetted. I do not foresee any difficulty on passing through this final step. As far as the actual user of the product, they want it and can't wait for their own departments to have this pushed through. So that means we now have an ally in the company in the form of the actual person who needs this. So when it comes time to getting updates from their HSE, it's not the guys trying to sell them stuff who are trying to get them to move faster, it is their own people. You want some grease on the wheel? This is how you do it.

So the remaining 10% to make this deal work is interesting. It is incredibly interesting. This could end up being more of an opportunity than what we are working on with this deal. Due to some corporate shenanigans, Company A needs to go through vendors that they already have approved in their system. While on a call with them today they gave me the names of who they want to go through on the actual orders. These are three Great White sized companies, and lo and behold, one of them is our Company B!

Our next task is to find out what needs to be done in order to utilize one of these Great Whites and have them be the distributor of our product. Sounds like a pain in the a$$, and having to cut someone else in on the deal right? Well I suppose that is all true, but what this also grants us is the opportunity to approach these guys with a deal. They need to do nearly 0 work, and get to make some money. We are also approaching all three of them, and only one gets the deal. That means that we, little ol' fishy swimming in their massive sea, has the opportunity to turn down two Great Whites. Want to wield some power and be taking seriously by a Great White? Let them know that they are not good enough for the deal, and that we don't need them.

These Great Whites are now going to know that we have the ear of Company A, and are supplying to them. I am anticipating that this will generate interest with them and could end up being something that they are able to utilize as well. We are going to be working our asses off and turn what could just be seen as a pain in the a$$, into something truly massive.

Think big, and then think bigger than that. To Industry!

 

[GPM]

So I am in the process of writing a stack of letters by hand, which will be mailed out in hand-addressed envelops. These will go to the COO's of various companies that we have an interest in. I am finding their information from their corporate websites (most list this information) and/or LinkedIn.

The letter is going to be short and sweet. It will contain no pitch or call to action. Simply a nice concise statement on company letterhead, and the inclusion of my business card. I am borrowing heavily from John D. Rockefeller for the tone and subject. He may have done this over 100 years ago, and done it in person (pretty hard with gatekeepers today) but I believe that the power of written word in ones hands may even hold more sway today than it did back then. I guess we will see how it goes.

I will let you guys know how it turns out.

To industry!

 

[GPM]

I am just throwing this out there for anyone reading. When this started I was so hesitant about everything due to my own self limiting beliefs. I used to have to pump myself up for 10 minutes before a phone call, put the number in my phone, and hit dial before I could stop myself from doing it.

Fast forward to right now and I am literally in negotiations with a Vice President at a pretty major company. Why I am talking to a VP and not just some lackey, who the heck knows! But here we are. It might have to do with never even trying to go through the small fish on this, I went straight to the top and worked my way down to whoever was going to need this.

I think that this is a better way of doing business, rather than filling out the "contact us" form or calling someone's 1-800 or secretary number.

 

[million$$$smile]

Break. Down. The. Walls.

This is what it's all about.
At times this is what it takes.
Going through the pain, we become more pain tolerant. The next problem that arises can be overcome because we have already overcome others.
It isn't uncommon when we are nearly at the end of our ropes, help seems to materialize out of the blue to push us back on to our road.

When one gives up, one never sees the 'uncommon' happen.
Some call it luck. I liken it to tenacity.
Never give up.
Find another way.

Anyone starting out has got to realize that it's never a skate in the park, (or a slide down the road!)
We have to RESOLVE that we are not going to give up just because there seems to be roadblocks in our way.

@GPM, thank you for the thread.

Rep+++

 

[GPM]

So I am up watching the baby tonight, my wife needs a break. She has been an absolute dream, and watches the baby nearly every single night so that I can get a good night sleep to keep working on what I need to work on.

I went back through this thread and read most of the posts over again. I nearly did not start this progress thread. I felt like I had nothing to offer anyone and even writing it might be a bit of a waste as I really did not have much movement on anything.

Well let me tell you, reading about how long and crappy this has been, and all the little things I had to do to get where I am now... Wow! What a change. I can remember the state of mind I was in while posting, and I look at where I am now. I honestly feel like a different person. My confidence and ability to deal with these people has gone through the roof, and my growth is exponential. Feeling the way I do now while looking back at my old posts, I am incredibly excited for 'future me' to be looking back at 'today me' to see how much further I have grown.

Starting a progress thread has given me some snapshots in time to go back and look at. If anyone has a business that they are completely serious about and working on, but you don't yet have a progress thread, get on it now! Your future self will thank you.

 

[GPM]

Alright ladies and gentlemen, looks like 2 of 3 companies are taking the bite. One company reached out to their VP level execs on our behalf and gave us an internal contact who is their Senior Director for our department in USA. Talks are ongoing.

My good friend and all around rock-star is killing it with the other 2 companies. One is super interested so far and talks are progressing. The 3rd company is being hit with delays by what sounds like regular employees who don't understand the big picture.

Employees keep going on holidays, which is annoying. But... this also gives us the chance to dig for more contacts. So our contact list is getting massive, which is never a bad thing.

The original deal which I thought would have already gone through by now has been put on hold due to a project being delayed. I have been told this one is a "when, not an if".

I am also literally typing this and making these phone calls with a baby in my arms. No excuses.

 

[amp0193]

So something that I have noticed in regards to a shift in mindset.

It's biological man. Story after story goes exactly the same. Have a kid. Instant life priority reorganization.

The day my daughter was born was the day I knew I could no longer be a teacher.

 

[Kak]

Well that was fast. Like crazy fast. It went from "I am not sure on the details on when we will need our first order" over the phone, to receiving a confirmation email with an order 30 minutes later.

Based on previous conversations with them we knew roughly how much they needed, but they made it sound like it was not as much as we were hoping. While I don't yet have the frequency for when they will need to order again, they went and absolutely BLEW UP my expectations on a first order. So yea, this is insanely good news. I imagine that once we are officially in place and used in a real-world environment (as opposed to just lab tests), all the doors will open up on them using our product.

The ball has been set in motion, we have a hundred steps to take from here that we were waiting on. January is going to be a freaking whirlwind of activity to capitalize on this.

@GPM is the man to watch for 2019! Hell freaking YES!!!

Everyone that reads this should dump 500 rep on Mr @GPM right freaking now. Trust me. Do it.

Congrats Buddy, you have kicked constant a$$ through the most bureaucratic mess I have seen in a LONG time! You've earned a closer dinner and closer Christmas for that matter!

You are going to be able to give your family the world.

FOLKS... Notice the time frame on this thread. This is what hard work looks like.

 

[Kak]

Well it has been a long and hard battle.

Our first meeting with our potential customer was in November 2017. As of this morning we just received our first PO.

Some small details on the timeline involving this are as follows:

• July 2017 - Communications begin
• November 2017 - We drop off our material for testing
• Summer 2018 - Our material completed lab testing and approved
• Fall 2018 - We jump through a million hoops to be able to be a vendor of this company
• December 2018 - They tell us they want to order, and send an email stating as much
• March 2018 - I have been the squeaky wheel for 3-4 months trying to get them to actually put the order in. This includes flying down for meetings. They finally put an order in, which I received this morning

So this was the first major hurdle to overcome. Everything prior to this was essentially just a bunch of work with no payoff, now the real fun starts. This first order will prove out our concept in the real world, not just in the laboratory. Once this is successful it essentially opens the door for us to be able to generate contracts with our customers. We want steady orders, we will provide guarantee pricing and availability and whatever else needs to be done in order to make everyone happy.

One nice thing about the order being so slow, is that while all that was going on, lab testing was continuing on expanding the need for our material. The potential keeps increasing, and now that we have jumped through all the hoops and actual orders are being placed, it will be as easy as them asking for more and we get them more. No more games.

The real fun is that we now have the most respected name in the industry as a customer. The weight that this carries will be massive, and I can now take this with me as we increase our customer base. We literally started with the top dog in the entire industry, and won.

Persistence. Pays. Off.

Great job bud!

 

[GPM]

I have not updated this thread since April. I was hoping to have some more to say in regard to wins, but unfortunately that is not the case. The market for what we are competing against has shifted drastically. In the long term there is not a single doubt in my mind that we can win, but unfortunately most employees don't deal in the long term, so we have to play pricing games which does not work for us at the moment. So I continue to stay in contact and build relationships. When the time is right everything is in place, and I will be there with a solution.

In happier news, there are a few developments on other products and materials. By other developments I mean that we have some pretty big support behind us on some pretty major materials. We are invited to bid on a material for some continental business in 2020. I am also working on expanding our friends business into new geo-markets with existing products that they are the leading player with.

So it is all pretty high level at this point, and nothing is set in stone. However, the potential of all this just continues to increase. We are in an excellent spot right now, and have several irons in the fire which will literally get our names on the map when it comes to this industry. At that point if anything comes up, we will be invited to the table.

On the personal side we have more excitement going on. My daughter turns 1 in a couple of days, and we have another one due in February of next year! The thought of keeping this business high level, and mostly in the board room, REALLY excites me. I am going to dress my kids up in suit and blazer and they are coming with me to board room meetings before they are 10, mark my work. Have them sit in some government-brain-drain institution, or come with daddy and hammer out 10 million dollar deals? Yea, I know where I want them to be...

 

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[amp0193]

I am also literally typing this and making these phone calls with a baby in my arms. No excuses.

That's how my first business got started.

Skype chatting suppliers one-handed from the rocking chair at 2am, with my daughter in my lap.

 

[GPM]

Update time.

This. Moves. At. A. Snails. Pace.

So we have been talking with 2/3 of the distributors, and it sounds pretty awesome so far. Big business is a fascinating beast, no doubt about it. THEY offered to carry the note on this, so they will essentially be our bank on this deal.

Our customer makes an order -> We make an order with our spec manufacturer -> Deliver to the distributor and they pay us -> We pay our manufacturer -> Our customer pays the distributor.

The ability to scale this by using 100% someone else's cash on this is pretty amazing. If we go after anyone else that completely frees up our capital and actual banking to worry about those deals. These ones can grow nearly infinitely on their own. It also builds levels of trust with two big a$$ companies instead of just one. Very cool.

The customer on these deals have also passed us through more regulatory stages. From the sound of it we are good to go, just waiting for them to run out of their existing supplies. We are getting closer and closer to the goal line on this. It is getting exciting.

 

[Kak]

So something that I have noticed in regards to a shift in mindset.

Before, I was motivated by being able to own cool stuff. I love fast cars. I love to travel. I want fancy watches and high end electronics.

As some of you know, we had a baby a squeak over a month ago. Now that is all I can think about. Sure I still want the fancy stuff, but when I really deep-down think about what I want, it all revolves around family. I think that if I had 100k in the bank to spend, not a penny of it would go towards toys for me. It would all go towards facilitating family.

I want a larger house, but this isn't for some gaudy reason to show off. I want something that a community can gather at. I want family and friends to want to come over, for it to be a destination to get away and build relationships. I want to be able to fly and see family that is on the other side of the country, or a different country all together.

I am sure the toys will come, but they have been bumped to the bottom of the list in a big way.

Sorry for boring you all with that, back to business!

So a while back I saw a big delivery truck that advertised on the side what it is that their company does. I thought to myself "GPM, this looks like a company that needs what we have, I better find out how to talk to them". I ended up finding their purchasing and logistics manager on LinkedIn. After some back-and-forth we started to email each other. Turns out they can use what we have. We discussed volumes and frequency and well as pricing, and came to something that sound agreeable between us.

Today I drove down to meet him in person, and dropped off a sample for them to test. If all goes well, we could become their newest supplier.

This business might not go anywhere, but if it does it literally came about from me seeing a delivery truck while out on a walk and following up on it. Keep your eyes open, there are literally opportunities all over the place.

It's biological man. Story after story goes exactly the same. Have a kid. Instant life priority reorganization.

The day my daughter was born was the day I knew I could no longer be a teacher.

Very very cool. Arguably a FAR more powerful motivator.

This is the difference between a legacy builder and a "rich prick" that normal people love to hate.

I love the quote: "Money talks and wealth whispers."

 

[GPM]

Any chance of re-formulating on your hunch

Would not be worth it in this case. If this is something that we run in to a lot in the future it could be something to address. However, this was a small account that would have just been some extra gravy. Either way I have their contact info and might hit them up in the future and see what we can work out.

So we are still plugging away at this. It is literally 3-weeks between each communication that I get back from one major player. I just keep going though. Lots of calls, leaving messages, emails... anything I can to keep myself on their radar. Each time I think it is hopeless I end up getting a communication back and I realize that by keeping on them, this deal stays alive.

If they were not interested, they wouldn't keep (slowly) moving forward. I always need to remind myself of this and just keep hounding them.

Some good points of news though. I have a phone meeting with their sourcing department tomorrow. As best I can figure out, this is the last thing that we need to figure out. I also had a great conversation with a higher-up at another company who thinks that what we have may work for several of their customers. I am going to be pursuing this HARD once this main deal goes through, as it will be a pretty significant proof-of-concept in a real world scenario.

Just to put this in to perspective for those trying to think big. Our first meeting with this potential customer was in NOVEMBER 2017. That is over a year later with zero income from this, all the while accumulating expenses, and spending a fair amount of time putting this all together. It is driving us insane that we are where we are at over a year later, but unfortunately this is how the game is played. This is also insane that this is how the game is played, and we fully plan on taking advantage of just how ancient this all is once we start making a name for ourselves.

You have to be willing to put in YEARS with no expected return in order to get those massive world-changing numbers later on. Like ol' GC says, he hammered for years and years before he became an "overnight success".

 

[GPM]

The small stuff - This. F*cking. Sucks.

So I have a single pallet of material coming in from China. It has to land in Vancouver, clear customs, and then ship mainland to Calgary. I am out of the country for a month in Mexico, so not going to be physically present for any of this.

I have been in constant contact with my freight forwarder the entire time because I need to arrange all of this from out of country. They are aware that I will be away as well. The last time I heard from then my order "was delayed at sea due to a storm". Then magically on Monday they tell me that my product has landed and I need to pay for my shipment and customs ASAP. I pay these on Tuesday, to which they reply I also need to pay for 8 days of storage in Vancouver since my product has been sitting there too long.

Once I paid for my customs they released the pallet to Calgary and it should arrive by tomorrow. Now the real fun starts because the storage fees in Calgary are 3x more than they were in Vancouver.

The best part about all of this? My father was going to pick this up for me and handle it on to the final destination, with the caveat that this had to happen before March 8th. March 8 happens to be the day it gets to Calgary, so his help won't happen.

I am trying to figure out WTF happened with my FF, but I am guessing that this is a case of dealing with people who don't give a damn about their jobs. If they had done their jobs and told me when the pallet arrived so that I could have it clear customs, there would have been no extra charges and it would have been handled nicely in Calgary. Done and done. But instead I am looking at close to $1000 in extra fees on this shipment due to their incompetence, which of course I am going to fight.

Keep in mind all this work and headache is over some stupid product that is going to net me like $10,000 or some pittance like that. Plus I still have to do all of the work in order to even sell these goods. Plus all of the horrible fees UP FRONT that I have to pay for.

The amount of work does not change whether I am dealing with the business that has the potential to generate income for my great grandkids, or this crap that pays for a few bills or office supplies. What would you rather work on? I know which one I pick...

Hours are hours. Keep that in mind when you are working on your "business". Are you working on a "time for money exchange" or are you working for something that can actually make a difference in your life. It is actually significantly more stressful for me to be working on this small shit than trying to blow up some massive deal. It is enjoyable when I know I am trying to move mountains, it is a pain in the a$$ when I am fighting over tens of dollars.

 

[GPM]

PO is in. The ball is rolling. I estimate* that it should be three more months to know how this all went. At that point I can begin working on setting up recurring orders with these guys. In the meantime we are working on a second product with them as well. Word on the street is that they continue to build out the usage for our material, so the original yearly estimates should be incredibly low compared to where this will end up.

I had some fun with these guys on some changes we wanted to the PO. Some of the terms and such which were negotiated before hand, and they promptly wanted to throw out and put new ones in in their favor. We ended up having them meet the original terms, and had it all put in writing on the order sheet and emails. Our asses should be covered. We also got a little screwed by some other details on our manufacture. I will detail this some more once everything is 100% done and done and we have some contracts in hand


My personal life was thrown for a bit of a loop this weekend. Our rental lease is up the end of April, and we had planned on signing for 1 more year. That would give us lots of time to settle into some recurring revenue and move into a proper house for a family. The owner ended up selling our condo to their grandson, and he wants to move in at the end of summer. So we are out the end of July. The bind is that I have technically not been "employed" since summer of 2017, and these ventures have not paid out yet. So I am in the position of not having a large bank account, and not having any income statements for the next rental location.


*I pray that this doesn't take 6-12 months like everything else seems to take. I am going to be on them HARD to keep moving forward. After all, it is in their best interests to roll this out as quick as they can.

 

[GPM]

@MTEE1985 as much as I like to pretend like I know what I am doing, I am just along for the ride.

Someone came to me with this idea, and this is their baby. They are the rock behind this, I'm just running with it and trying to make it as big as I can.

They had the legwork done, and handle the tricky finances and such. I had the industry knowledge and contacts. I don't think that either one of us could have done this the way it is playing out without the other.

It started out as a potential business opportunity and some phone calls. It is turning into what will be an industry disruptor that will change the game, and a strong friendship as well.

I read somewhere that business from friendship is generally utter crap, but friendship from business is amazingly powerful. I am blessed to say that I am experiencing this first hand and it is life changing.

 

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[CurtRod]

And yet not one word of complaint all day.

I've heard you complain about a printer more in an hour than this all day. Nice work, not sure if I feel bad for not helping or like I should gloat because I left two days before this.

 

[GPM]

Well, got some GREAT news this morning! One of the companies I have been after gave me some amazing news. Another step in the right direction, a very big step.

(I just googled it for giggles, this is a top 300 company on the Fortune 500 list that we are going after...)

They will be testing our material next week. In this industry that is massive news. Technical personnel who do these sorts of tasks are in high demand, and their time is generally split between high priority tasks, and “fighting fires” as they come up. Unfortunately this department does not directly put money into the company’s pockets, so they are the first department to get cut during times of layoffs. Even though in the long term this is the department who will grow the bottom line, that’s bureaucracy for you…

The mark of a great management department in this industry is one who is able to peer into the future and anticipate priority tasks, so as to avoid as many “fires” as they can. What we need to do with this company is to prioritize our materials in their que, so as to bump our importance. Once we have been tested against the competition this will sell itself and absolutely explode into massive demand.

I am on cloud 9 right now. While we have not yet finalized any sales or contracts with these guys, this is just an absolutely massive step towards that. I have a big game plan for this, and this helps solidify the next steps to take. Always be thinking 6 steps in advance, momentum is massive and needs to be taken advantage of whenever possible.